Expedition 33 is "the first in a new wave" of "risky" games from small teams punching "above their weight," Sandfall tells us

Live on stage at Summer Game Fest 2025, perhaps the biggest gaming event of the year following E3's demise, Geoff Keighley praised Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as "a monumental achievement" from a "team of under 30 developers." This was far from the first time that Sandfall's team size had been in discussion following Expedition 33's huge success and rave reviews, which earned it a spot on our best RPGs list. How could such a tiny crew produce something so ambitious and with 'triple-A' grade production values?

A quick look at Expedition 33's credits shows that Sandfall was around a 30-person team on release, but they also list various outsourcing companies (including animators, QAs, and localization teams) that all contributed to the game's success. It's fair to say that Expedition 33 wasn't just worked on by 30 people. While Keighley was far from the first to reference Sandfall's size in his praise, his comments sparked online backlash from players, press, and even some other developers, largely because that '30-person' claim paints far from the full picture.

In an interview about Expedition 33's new "thank you" update, Sandfall's CEO and creative director Guillaume Broche told me that "we don't plan to grow the studio too much; we want to remain very small and agile, with a strong creative vision." That prompts me to ask about Keighley's statement, and whether or not Broche and his partner in crime, COO and producer Francois Meurisse, take issue with the focus on its team size and whether that hinders more than it helps.

"I don't think it does," Broche tells me. "We [recently] traveled a lot in Asia and visited a few Chinese studios, and I think we're the first in a new wave of how [the industry] makes games. With the tech that's accessible now, it's much easier; it's still a shit ton of work, don't get me wrong, but it's easier to make a game that looks bigger than the size of the team [that's making it].

"We saw a lot of projects that aren't even 'adults' yet that are the same - they're made by smaller teams that are crazy ambitious, and they look and play well; I think they are going to be amazing games. I think it's just the start of a new wave, and I think that this kind of production will be more prevalent in the future - projects that take risks, feel very unique artistically, are very impressive visually, and hit above their weight.

"I think the fact that it impresses so much is because we are probably the first ones - or among the first ones - to do it, but I'm sure that we're just at the beginning of this kind of [development style]."

"When we were creating the company, we were really inspired by games like Hellblade and A Plague Tale: Innocence, which proved that, with the right tools and teams, you can create some hits in realistic 3D with double-A teams," Meurisse continues. "We took [their successes] as proof that it was possible to dream big with a team of less than 50 people."

While Sandfall doesn't seem to take issue with discussions around its small team size, other indie studios - including Balatro creator LocalThunk, who is consistently referred to a "solo dev" - vehemently hate it.

If the news of Expedition 33's new update has lured you back to Lumiere, we have a list of all the best Expedition 33 builds to help you maximise your damage, as well as a rundown of all the best Expedition 33 weapons to send your numbers skyrocketing.

Is the future of game dev in more compact core teams? Does the fixation on Sandfall's size create unrealistic expectations? Let us know over on Discord, where we love hearing your hot takes.